Tracing lives of miners identified in photo

Our photograph this week is of a group of miners that was included among the personal papers of Letha Sidenstricker.

Letha was born on April 12, 1888, near Neck City to Ansel and Elizabeth (Young) Sidenstricker.

The Sidenstricker family moved from Johnson County, Mo., to Jasper County, in 1879, where they built a log cabin near Spring River. Letha and her seven siblings were raised in this log cabin.

Letha married Willard C. Sloan on Sept. 4, 1906, in Carthage. They lived in Neck City and eventually moved back to the Sidenstricker farm by 1910.

Willard worked in the area mines and is one of the men pictured in the photograph. Other names written on the back were Garland Davis, Don Hardenbaugh, Bill Lester and Percy Thompson.

Garland Davis was born Feb. 26, 1887, and died on June 8, 1945, from tuberculosis. His occupation throughout the years was miner, mine engineer and road worker.

There were two Bill Lesters in the area during this time period. One of them, listed as a miner, died in 1908 at the age of 35. The other Bill Lester survived the famous Longacre Chapman mine cave-in of 1915.

A marriage record was found for Percy Thompson, but no information could be found on Don Hardenbaugh.

Willard Sloan died on Sept. 15, 1919, in Neck City from tuberculosis at the age of 41.

Letha Sloan was later remarried to Charles W. Lake and moved to Denver, Colo., where she died in 1967 at the age of 79.